Tuesday, June 8, 2010

I will quote my dear husband, who said this afternoon "Wow, I think this is the best day I've had in my life, since . . . . well . . . since yesterday!" We left Drumheller this morning and drove around Calgary and up into Banff. Banff is one of those rare places on earth were you can literally drive down the road and stick your camera out the window, randomly snapping pictures, and come up with amazing shots.

The weather guys were predicting rain on and off all day today. While there was some rain early in the day, by the time we really reached the mountains the sun was peeking out and we had some lovely views. Seriously beautiful views.

We stopped in Canmore first, on the way to Banff, and found a little yarn shop called Knit and Caboodle. I found a very friendly knitter/owner, and some great yarn! I only bought a few skeins, but it is Alberta-made wool, hand-dyed and everything. Yay! One ironic tidbit is that the owner is heading to Columbus, OH this coming weekend for the big TNNA trade show! How funny is that? She goes to Cbus every year. Of course, she FLIES like a sane person.

So we got to Banff, drove around the town a little, and then headed to the Gondola. This is a suspended cable car that runs up to the peak of Sulphur Mountain. I didn't take a picture on the way because I was doing deep breathing and trying not to yak. LOL The peak, though, was beautiful (of course - I've totally run out of adjectives, haven't I?). I made Si pose with me for a pic.

Mike saw 3 new life birds just on that gondola trip - 2 of them in the same tree at the peak! In the tree he saw Clark's Nutcracker and the Grey Jay, on the way down he found the 3-toed Woodpecker. We also saw some more ground squirrels - a different species than we'd previously seen, and new chipmunks!

After all of that, we drove along the #1 Highway up through the National Park and saw a lot more wildlife. There are a lot of pull-offs for people who want to view nature, and Si and Mike did a bit of extra walking.Mike was taking many pictures (over 1000 just today!) and Simon was looking for animals.

Si saw a Grizzly Bear, a Brown Bear, they both saw beaver, and a wolf, and all three of us saw Big Horn Sheep, Mule Deer and Elk.